Fans of George A. Romero’s dead films know that the third entry was a compromised vision. Romero’s early draft of Day of the Dead would have cost more money than he could raise, so he cut back. Wonder what could have been? Check it out:

by Brian Cooper and George Romero
While Romero was waiting for a greenlight on his 4th Dead movie, he started working on a totally different zombie movie involving an undead rock band. The project was put on hold when Land of the Dead went into production. Screenplay excerpts were once available at DiamondDead.com, but the site is no longer active.

by Rospo Pallenberg, novel by Stephen King
George Romero has worked with Stephen King many times over the years. They planned on doing a theatrical version of The Stand, but it didn’t happen. Romero’s producing partner, Richard P. Rubenstein, ended up doing the mini-series after they parted ways. Read the Pallenberg script and an in-depth (if biased) history of the project, courtesy of Subterranean Cinema.

by George Romero
Romero got the shaft on this one. A German production company bought the rights to the video game and hired the zombie master to write and direct the adaptation. (Romero had already done some Japanese TV ads for the Resident Evil 2 video game.) According to Romero, the producers didn’t really have any idea what they wanted. It was like they didn’t understand the game’s inherent gore factor, because they shied away from his concept and started over with Paul Anderson.